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  • Care Workers Get A Seat At The Table

    The way she tells it, Sandra Sherwood first stepped into direct care work at 16, when she started caring for her grandfather who had suffered a stroke on his farm. ​“Mom and I headed over there, and when we got there, granddad couldn’t even make a sentence —it was all garbled, didn’t make any sense of what he was trying to say,” she remembers. ​“He would be in a wheelchair from then on because it affected one whole half of his body.”

    “Everything got sold,” she continues. ​“The property, the chickens, the cows, the pigs — everything got sold. Granddad and grandma ended up moving in with my mom and dad and the family.

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  • A UBI Pilot Could Be About To Help Hundreds Of Homeless People

    Academics at Northumbria University and campaigners from the UBI Lab Network have launched a groundbreaking proposal for a UK first-of-its-kind Universal Basic Income pilot. Crucially, it’s one that could start the ball rolling towards ending absolute poverty in Greater Manchester for good. The pilot would help to build the case for the eventual roll-out of a country-wide Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme.

    However, its potential seismic impacts aren’t only limited to these longer-term goals. This is because the Basic Income scheme itself could be about to make a difference for young homeless people across Greater Manchester – and it could do so right away.

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  • Activists Win Excessive Compensation Tax To Fund Social Housing

    Seattle voters have just beaten the oligarchs, Amazon, Microsoft, the local Chamber of Commerce, the real estate industry, the coup makers and backers, the Muskites, and the Trumpiphiles. How? Through a ballot measure, the people in Seattle have just approved a tax on excessive executive compensation to fund affordable housing.

    The vote wasn’t even close. The proposal, Proposition 1A, won by a 26-point margin.

    The advocacy group House Our Neighbors led the ballot campaign. Their leaders and leafletters and canvassers prevailed over a conservative and obstructing city council, a mayor focused on toadying to Seattle-based Amazon, a half-million-dollar opposition campaign, and the overlords of the Trump/Musk dictatorship.

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  • Trump Provides An Opportunity To Change The Way We Look At Food

    As the political and economic instability created by the goings-on south of the border continue, it is time for all of us to recall how we arrived at this juncture.

    It is also time to acknowledge that, despite common belief, there has never really been “free” trade with the United States, but rather only a series of measures that have encouraged the unhealthy integration of the Canadian economy into that of our southern neighbours and the ensuing enrichment and concentration of wealth in the hands of transnational corporate giants.

    Throughout these so-called free trade agreements (FTA, FTAA, NAFTA, CUSMA) the US has often filed unfair trade practice complaints that have led to international trade dispute panels.

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  • This Black-Owned Bank Is Disrupting Recidivism

    For 21 years, Halim Flowers was incarcerated in prisons across the country, often spending his time reading books about economics, banking and finance.

    It wasn’t until 2018, during his last few months in the D.C. Department of Corrections, that 44-year-old Flowers was able to validate what he was learning, meet bankers from D.C. based-Industrial Bank, and open a savings account from prison with one of the only banks in the country offering services to incarcerated people.

    “They were good teachers. They humanized us as incarcerated people,” says Flowers, who is now an artist, author and runs his own fashion brand.

    The post This Black-Owned Bank Is Disrupting Recidivism appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • The Big Idea: Social Housing

    Affordable housing — which typically involves giving tax breaks to real estate developers — isn’t working so well. The open secret is that, all too often, it isn’t actually ​“affordable.” Nearly 40% of tenants using the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, for example — the largest federal program subsidizing affordable housing — are still rent-burdened, and the subsidy doesn’t require homes to be permanently ​“affordable,” leaving renters vulnerable to eviction.

    As Peter Dreier explains in The American Prospect: ​“The quest to provide what has come to be called ​‘affordable housing’ in America is hobbled by one fundamental reality.

    The post The Big Idea: Social Housing appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Tech-Enhanced Deliberation For Cooperative Decision-Making

    In 2025, we will be exploring ways to put this in practice in MONDRAGON’s cooperatives to learn how the principles behind citizens’ assemblies – sortition (randomly selecting decision makers), deliberation, and rotation – can be applied in the context of cooperative decision making and governance. The goals are to help lead to a more engaged workforce and membership, as well as to result in better, more informed, and legitimate decisions in times of complexity. 

    Furthermore, we will test how new technologies can enrich deliberation processes and facilitate new approaches to decision making in cooperatives.

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  • How Solidarity Economies Take Hold

    In cities powerfully shaped by racial capitalism and economic exclusion, communities have long fought to reclaim their futures through economic solidarity and cooperation. This has been the case through the darkest stages of racial capitalist urban history and remains especially important in the face of a resurgent patriarchal white supremacy today.

    Our research, detailed in our new book “Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation,” reveals a striking pattern: The very neighborhoods redlined into disinvestment and organized abandonment decades ago have become hubs of worker cooperatives, credit unions, community gardens and mutual aid networks that, together, constitute the decentralized but vibrant solidarity economy movement.

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  • Kerala’s Healthcare Revolution: A Triumph Over Corporate Greed

    The New Indian Express reported on February 10, 2025, that Kerala has seen the closure of 99 private hospitals since 2011, citing the data from the Kerala Private Hospital Association (KPHA). The association believes this number is a conservative estimate, with the actual figure likely much higher.

    Hussain Koya Thangal, President of the Kerala Private Hospital Association (KPHA), emphasized that while the cost of treatment has remained relatively stable, the financial burden of maintaining infrastructure and running hospitals has increased significantly.

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  • Could A New Housing Cooperative Help Create Affordable Homes?

    For the last year and a half, Chase Hasegawa and a few of his neighbors at the Courtyards at Waipouli have been trying to preserve their Kaua‘i apartment complex as a much-needed source of workforce housing. The tenants have been working with a Honolulu nonprofit with the hope of buying the property and turning it into an affordable housing cooperative.

    If their Waipouli Housing Cooperative is successfully established, it would be the first affordable housing cooperative to be created on Kaua‘i and the first in decades for the state.

    But the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) is planning to acquire the property for Native Hawaiian beneficiaries soon.

    The post Could A New Housing Cooperative Help Create Affordable Homes? appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Public Banking In A Time Of Climate Crisis

    On the night of Jan. 7, as the Palisades Fire surged to 2,000 acres to the west and the Eaton Fire exploded to 1,000 to the east, I joined thousands fleeing hurricane-force winds that hurled embers for miles. I evacuated out of precaution, but across Los Angeles, many Angelenos were not as fortunate.

    Like so many here, I spent those first sleepless nights glued to wall-to-wall news coverage, tracking the fires’ paths. But while flames dominated headlines, a slower crisis burns, one that Los Angeles has yet to confront.

    Caught in a cycle of destruction and recovery that grows more urgent every year, fire season is no longer a season — it’s a year-round threat.

    The post Public Banking In A Time Of Climate Crisis appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Removing Obstacles For Small-Scale Manufacturers In Boston

    Jen Faigel stood in the production line watching a rush of mini-pies bake to a golden brown. Around her, 10 people stood at different spots, each responsible for a different process: pouring in the apple and blueberry filling, sprinkling a generous helping of crumb topping, sliding the pies in to bake, pulling pies off the cooling rack and into custom-designed packaging. After seven days of baking, it smelled like her grandma’s kitchen.

    Teresa Maynard, owner of Sweet Teez Bakery, and her team were busy filling the largest single order they had ever received: 42,000 pies, going to 25 Whole Foods stores.

    The post Removing Obstacles For Small-Scale Manufacturers In Boston appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • How A Worker Cooperative Is Mitigating The Stray Animal Crisis

    The popularity of support animals attests to the mental health benefits of bonding with a pet, such as decreased stress, anxiety, and loneliness. According to the Mayo Clinic, having pets may also positively impact cardiovascular health and blood pressure control.

    Unfortunately, many animals that could be treasured companions never get that opportunity. This is especially true in the state of Texas. According to the animal welfare group Best Friends Animal Society, approximately 568,325 cats and dogs entered Texas shelters in 2023, and an estimated 82,681 of these animals were killed.

    The post How A Worker Cooperative Is Mitigating The Stray Animal Crisis appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Redesigning Care For New Jersey’s Black Moms

    Cherelle Lloyd had just given birth to her son two weeks prior when she sensed something was wrong. With her hands and breasts in pain, she decided she needed outside help.

    “It was hurting every time that [my son] latched,” says Lloyd. “It was just miserable.”

    Finding resources near where she lived in East Orange, N.J. wasn’t easy. When she searched for support, all the in-person lactation consultants covered by her insurance were more than fifty miles away.

    That’s when her doula connected her to Perinatal Health Equity Initiative (PHEI), a Black maternal health nonprofit offering community services in New Jersey.

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  • Varieties Of Worker Cooperatives In Tech

    Working conditions in the tech sector are deteriorating. Leading tech firms like Google, once considered top employers, have laid off thousands of workers despite reporting profits. Traditional tech firms struggle to reconcile the paradox of high job quality and profitability. Can worker cooperatives offer an alternative for tech workers? Known for prioritizing equity and social well-being, can they succeed where traditional firms fail? I believe worker cooperatives are a viable solution for tech workers.

    I want to share a framework that explains the different varieties of tech worker cooperatives.

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  • ‘Quantitative Easing With Chinese Characteristics’

    China went from one of the poorest countries in the world to global economic powerhouse in a mere four decades. Currently featured in the news is DeepSeek, the free, open source A.I. built by innovative Chinese entrepreneurs which just pricked the massive U.S. A.I. bubble.

    Even more impressive, however, is the infrastructure China has built, including 26,000 miles of high speed rail, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world, 100,000 miles of expressway, the world’s first commercial magnetic levitation train, the world’s largest urban metro network, seven of the world’s 10 busiest ports, and solar and wind power generation accounting for over 35% of global renewable energy capacity.

    The post ‘Quantitative Easing With Chinese Characteristics’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • The New Yorkers Standing Behind Migrants

    Flatbush, New York — Shelves of weathered shoes line the purple basement walls of the Bridge, a nonprofit, on Dec. 14, 2024. Used coats hang from rolling racks. Residents of Floyd Bennett Field, a remote former airport-turned-migrant-shelter in Brooklyn, queue up with slips of paper in their hands, listing the ages and genders of their children. Kids weave among parents’ legs before moving to the second floor for childcare.

    Waiting is part of the ordeal for migrant families in shelters. But now the stakes have increased. The 2,000 Floyd Bennett Field residents will soon be moved to other shelters, and questions loom: Do other shelters have space?

    The post The New Yorkers Standing Behind Migrants appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Chicago Clinic Offers Free Legal Aid To Solidarity Economy Groups

    Chicago, Illinois, has a rich history of grassroots organizing. Notable examples are the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council’s efforts to improve local economic and social conditions and the Black Panther Party’s establishment of housing cooperatives and free food, clothing, and medical services.

    The solidarity economy movement has continued to gain momentum in Chicago. In 2024, a map from the worker-owned ChiCommons Cooperative showed more than 800 solidarity enterprises, co-ops, and mutual aid groups in the city.

    The post Chicago Clinic Offers Free Legal Aid To Solidarity Economy Groups appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Trump’s Reign Of Terror On Schools And How We Fight Back

    The new presidential administration is enacting an education agenda the same way it is doing everything else: in a blitzkrieg, implementing sweeping measures as hastily as possible with little regard to their legality or feasibility. This rapid-fire assault — on trans youth who need gender-affirming care, on teachers who convey the basic facts of American history, on Head Start educators who need to make payroll—has a devastating material impact on countless individuals’ ability to teach, learn and feel safe in schools.

    Beyond these tangible consequences, the hailstorm of actions has a broader effect.

    The post Trump’s Reign Of Terror On Schools And How We Fight Back appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • High Hopes For Hempcrete

    Lisa Sundberg and Peter Holmdahl want to change the construction industry in North America by using one of the oldest cultivated plants in human history: hemp. Sundberg is an activist from Trinidad, California, with a background in industry development. She met Holmdahl, a Swede with a background in business development and sustainability, through a shared commitment to expanding the use of hempcrete (also known as hemp lime).

    This building material made from industrial hemp byproduct is gaining attention for its sustainable properties.

    The post High Hopes For Hempcrete appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • We Need A Data Revolution To Avert Climate Disaster

    The fires in Los Angeles represent a catastrophic failure to anticipate and respond to environmental threats. In the aftermath of such devastation, an obvious question looms: How did we miss the warning signs?

    The answer is clear. Unlike other feedback systems designed to drive immediate response — think of the life-saving equipment in intensive care units, or even a car’s fuel gauge — the tools we use to monitor climate resilience and risk are dangerously, and indefensibly, outdated.

    Take the Planetary Boundaries framework, one of the most recognized global indicators of humanity’s transgression of critical ecological thresholds, such as climate stability and biodiversity.

    The post We Need A Data Revolution To Avert Climate Disaster appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Venezuelan People, Main Foundation Of The Revolutionary Process

    Venezuela is undergoing a period of profound social transformation, working toward the creation of a society focused on development, self-sustainability, independence, and sovereignty, all while navigating the challenges posed by foreign hostilities, coercive measures, and misinformation campaigns. In this process, community participation plays a crucial role, as it is the key to driving meaningful change and fostering a sustainable future.

    In this context, on Sunday, Venezuela will hold a historic election unlike any other in the world.

    The post Venezuelan People, Main Foundation Of The Revolutionary Process appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Vote On ‘Social Housing’ Could Break Stranglehold Of Private Landlords

    On a once-vacant plot of public land in Seattle, a cluster of mid-rise buildings surrounds a tree-filled courtyard. Children play on swings while adults run laps and chat on shared stoops. Some neighbors live in dorm-style rooms with common kitchens, others in family-sized townhomes — but all benefit from access to parks and transit, affordable rents and a democratic say in how their buildings run.

    None of this exists yet, to be clear. But it’s the vision, laid out in proof-of-concept sketches and during door-to-door canvassing conversations, that Seattle housing activists are hoping to make tangible to voters.

    The post Vote On ‘Social Housing’ Could Break Stranglehold Of Private Landlords appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Celebrating Collective Courage

    In 2014, the seminal book, Collective Courage: A History of African-American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice debuted, and with it a flame sparked in the cooperative movement. Slowly and then exponentially the book went viral by word of mouth throughout black and brown communities across the U.S. and beyond. It was a “how-to” for self-determination and making an impact in the world that was tangible. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard’s book gave us both the answer to a viable alternative outside of petitions and protests and provided a blueprint for how our ancestors, names both widely known and unknown, paved a path toward cooperative economics.

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  • Amid Bad News For Workers, Win In New Orleans Offers Hope

    There’s a little bit of hope in the city, even with grim election results and a grimmer start to the year. A Workers’ Bill of Rights was overwhelmingly approved by voters on Election Day. More than 80% of those who cast a ballot voted to enshrine workers’ rights in the city’s Home Rule charter, the first step in the process of building a real framework for enforcing higher minimum wages, employer-provided healthcare, paid family and sick leave, vacation time and the right to organize. In a state where President Donald Trump won 60% of the vote and where a far-right legislature and governor have preempted many of the possibilities for local action, the Workers’ Bill of Rights offers a blueprint for forward motion under conservative governance.

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  • Sewing Network Shows How Entrepreneurs Can Thrive In Place

    Despite no formal sewing training and few successful entrepreneurship examples in her neighborhood, Pittsburgh-based entrepreneur Nisha Blackwell has spent the last 10 years using her love of sewing to show her community that successful entrepreneurship is possible. Her boutique bowtie company Knotzland, upcycling rescued textiles and materials into high-quality bows through a distributed production model, shows how small-scale manufacturing can bring new life to struggling neighborhoods.

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  • Meet The Cleaners Taking Control Of Their Work

    Lulu Hernández said when she first started working as a cleaner in Vancouver, she just accepted the long hours and low wages that were the industry standard.

    But two women she met on the job helped her realize her workday could be different, Hernández said.

    “We were just dreaming about having a company where we are all women and fairly paid and a community,” she said. “We had all these ideas, but we didn’t know what we were creating until we put the name on it.”

    Hernández is one of the three founders of the Cleaning Co-op. Since incorporating in May 2023, the co-operative has grown to employ about 20 women and gender-diverse employees, including cleaners and administration staff.

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  • No One Is Coming To Feed Us

    It’s January 2025, LA is burning, Richmond has no water, Helene survivors are getting kicked out of hotels by FEMA. The level of government response you grew up with is gone. This has left millions wondering; what is it going to take for Americans to say enough is enough?

    The missing piece of the puzzle is food. If we can’t feed ourselves, we can’t disrupt the system that feeds us. If we don’t source our food locally, we won’t fight to stay. We urgently need communities that can feed themselves while withholding labor, communities that trust and rely on each other, and communities that understand the vital importance of the land they’re living on.

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  • A Major Milestone In Socialist History

    One of the most legendary scenes of revolutionary joy in the history of the world socialist movement is said to have occurred when Vladimir Lenin reportedly went out to dance in the snow in order to celebrate the fact that the recently minted Soviet Republic had outlasted the Paris Commune. The workers who had taken over the French capital in 1871 and launched a collective project of self-governance were able to hold out for seventy-two days before the ruling class trounced this experiment in a more egalitarian world.

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  • A Public Model For Home Insurance

    With every extreme weather event, housing is damaged and belongings are lost. Insurance is supposed to be the safety net that helps people to recover and restart their lives. But as major disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and hailstorms increase in frequency and severity thanks to climate change, more insurance companies are cutting back on policies, jacking up premium rates, or refusing to cover whole areas of the country. This change is leaving people who live in affected homes—including everything from single-family houses to multifamily rental buildings—facing financial hardship and even homelessness, among other ruinous consequences.

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